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Thursday, March 03, 2005

A man who recently had received radiation treatment for a medical condition set off a nuclear alert detector on a fire engine, prompting police to close down a roadway in Escondido while authorities searched for a nuclear weapon.

The radiation monitor was purchased with Homeland Defense Department grant money and is used 24 hours a day on each fire truck in the Rancho Santa Fe Fire Protection District, according to Capt. Dale Mosby.

Now that is an interesting question. I don't know if the airports have nuclear detectors walking around. usually they are just using the sniff device on your luggage and a metal detector on you. I think the metal detector would only be able to identify metal objects so, nothing most likely except that he may be extremely ill on the airplane while flying.

Kat:What was activated was probably a radiological dosimeter. We will be issuing one to every engine and ladder in our fair city very shortly. We recently completed training of the entire department. They are set to activate at a very low dose for obvious reasons and can be set off by someone having radiological treatments. We train our people to use common sense and ask some questions before calling for a radiological response.